Little Worm
by esama
Summary: Few themed insights to the undead life of the forever young Harry Potter. Companion/continuation to my other Harry Potter Hellsing crossover, Vermin Control, will make more sense if you've read that one. Darkish.
1. Death to Conclusion

**Little Worm**

1. Death

Harry died when he was five years old, killed by a vampire living in an abandoned warehouse in London, killed after being abandoned by his human family, killed after being abandoned by everyone. It was a slow, agonising death by blood loss that took not hours, not days, but weeks. The vampire - to this day he didn't know the monster's name - kept him alive that long, biting him once or twice a day, taking some of his blood, and then leaving to him in his misery in the crate, in the darkness, in the filth.

He screamed most of the first days of his slow death, banging his hands against the crate's walls until they were hurting, until he was crying and sobbing. Weak. But he had been five, abandoned, in pain and so hungry. The smell of his own waste was disgusting, his stomach would never settle and he was cold. Terrified.

And the questions, the begging, why, what, please… they wouldn't go away. Why him, why now, why had his family left him, why like this, why here? What had he done, what had he done to deserve this, what had been so horrible that this could be his punishment? Please lock him in the cupboard instead, please make him do chores instead, please make him go to bed without meal instead. Why, what, _please_… please, uncle Vernon, please. He'd do anything.

But his family had left him, alone, in the streets of London. They didn't know where he was, they didn't care and they didn't come. And so he died hungry, cold, sick, weak, asking and begging, in the hands of a nameless monster, his slow torturer.

In his final days of life, he didn't beg. He didn't have the strength to.

And after dying, he no longer cared to.

2. Alone

For the longest time Harry had been certain that he'd remain in the crate for the rest of his life, and then in the specially welded cage his sire made to ensure that he never went anywhere. It seemed to be the elder vampire's intention anyway, to keep him from leaving, from drawing any attention, from doing anything. It was apparently all he could do, since he, just like Harry's guardians, was unable to kill him.

Before he would've cared. He _had_ cared, even in the very end when he had been too weak to do anything. But no more. He had accepted, dulled and gotten adjusted to. Weeks of imprisonment followed by odd change and now more imprisonment… it all melted together and stopped meaning anything. In the end he was only waiting for something - freedom, death, who knew what. It was all he could do.

When the red clad vampire came and killed Harry's keeper, he had expected, and in a way hoped, that it would be his death as well, but it hadn't been. Even the red clad vampire had fallen victim to the odd protection Harry had, and hadn't killed him. Harry had a feeling Alucard could've broken though the protection, if he had tried, but had simply opted not to. Not yet anyway.

"Let's meet again in a few years, little worm," the elder vampire said instead, telling him that he was interesting and that he'd better be as interesting in the future.

Harry had a feeling about what Alucard meant by "interesting", but he was mostly fine with it. But now that he had the chance to, he was fine with living a little longer too.

3. Childhood

The amount of kids in the streets of London was staggering sometimes. Not all of them were homeless, though. Some lived with their families, with their surrogate families, at private schools, at orphanages, and still spent a lot of time out in the streets, even during the nights, doing this and that, wasting time, wasting their lives. But there were those who were actually living in the streets, those who occupied abandoned houses and alcoves under bridges and found shelter wherever they could. Who begged and stole for living.

The first person Harry killed was a young boy like this, about the age of thirteen. He was nothing special, and there was no reason why Harry had chosen him other than the fact that the kid had been alone and too deep asleep to run. He couldn't say it was a painless death either. It was the first time he had done it, and he couldn't find the right vein on the first try. The boy had woken up, struggled against him, screamed, thrashed. But even with the body of a five year old, Harry was a vampire, and stronger.

The boy he fed on didn't die from his bite. Harry's stomach wasn't big enough to drink all of his blood, and though he could've let the boy bleed to death, he didn't want to. After living years in filth, he abhorred it, he wanted nothing to do with it, and spilled blood was filth. So instead his victim died when Harry twisted his head and cleanly broke his neck. And when he did, Harry felt an odd sensation of satisfaction.

He would never be as old as the boy he had killed. He would remain forever five years old, forever short, forever thin, forever weak. He would never grow up, even though he had stopped being a child when his nameless monster of a sire had accidentally turned him, and that made him bitter.

It felt almost right to kill someone who was wasting the youth he would never have.

4. Home

The first place Harry called his home was the top floor of an abandoned apartment building, which had been waiting for four years to be torn down. It was a miserable place. The windows were broken, the walls were full of graffiti, the floors were littered with trash and cigarette stubs. The draft was horrible.

But Harry didn't feel the wind like most people and cared nothing about cold. He cleaned the floor, covered the windows with the remains of curtains and dry walls and old broken furniture, mostly to make sure no light would get in than to keep the cold out. He stole clothes for himself from the shops that stayed open late, blankets and pillows and eventually made himself a bed. He added a few items he considered interesting, and even managed to steal a working radio which he listened through the long nights when he didn't need to go out and find himself something to eat. And, for a while, he was content.

The first small gang of youths who moved into claim the little shelter he had made for himself ended up as ghouls, and to his amusement Harry made them fix the windows properly before tearing their heads off. The second gang fled after Harry fed on their so called leader and never returned. The third group of people were homeless children who ran away at the sight of the blood stained bottom floor.

The fourth group of people were the demolishers, arriving five years too late and still way too soon. Harry killed two of them before heading to the sewers, swearing never to bother with something as silly as home ever again.

5. Growth

It took dozen kills before Harry noticed that each one of them made him just a tiny bit stronger. Before he had thought it was because of the blood - anyone was stronger after eating - but this was something else, something more. After his twelfth victim, he knew for sure that there was something more to it than just energy one got from eating.

The friends of his twelfth kill stabbed him in panic, trying to save their friend. And though before Harry would've bled for a long time after a wound like that, would've lost his strength, fallen unconscious and remained so until his wound slowly healed… this time none of that happened. The wound bled for a moment and then closed, and all Harry was left dealing with was three shocked teens and his own surprise.

And a sense of power he had never had before.

6. Dreams

Once upon a time, when there had been a living Harry James Potter roaming the Earth, he had had dreams and fantasies. Nothing big, though. All food you could eat on one sitting instead of measly scraps. Soft bed to sleep on in his very own room instead of uncomfortable cot in the cupboard under the stairs. And family to love him instead of the family that hated him.

After his death, Harry had no use for such delusions. He could get all food he needed pretty easily on the streets. He couldn't feel warmth the same way anymore and his body barely felt discomfort anymore. And what on Earth would he do with a family now? What would a family do with him, except possibly shove a stake through his heart? And even though his tiny frame caused some trouble to him, he had remained a five year old physically for years now. He had gotten adjusted to. Besides, small body was easier to stalk with than bigger one would've been.

But still, sometimes, he dreamed of things he couldn't always understand. Of a flash of green light and maniac cackle. Of flying motorcycles and kind giant and old man with silver beard. Of a woman with red hair and green eyes, of a man with his own wild black hair and glasses. Of flying on a toy broom.

It was probably the lingering imagination of human childhood that was still desperately clinging to his undead form.

7. Realism

Harry wasn't the only vampire in the streets of London. There was surprisingly many of them, and very soon he found out that they shared a sense of superiority. They stalked the nightly streets like they owned them and the few times Harry had heard them talk, they talked of grandeur and greatness, of dominating humans as their masters, as their owners, treating them like the lifestock they were. Vampires, Harry found, often had mighty high opinions of themselves.

The ones that moved to act upon their concepts of greatness were the ones who vanished quickest. A male vampire considered himself great and strong and moved to butcher an entire street of human families. He was still in the second house when he was killed. A female vampire attacked a ballet school in order to feast on blood of young maidens and remain forever young like Carmilla Sanguina herself. She was splattered all over the walls before reaching her fifth victim. A young couple of vampires, former gang members, attempted to demolish their own gang and turn them into ghouls. They only managed to kill few before two well aimed shots took them out.

"Hellsing," the more sensible vampires whispered in those times. "Hellsing."

Harry had no intention of going their way. He cared nothing for grandeur and big dreams and he certainly had no high opinion himself. After all, he had heard it from the master of monsters himself. He was nothing but a little worm.

That was, for a long while, just fine in his opinion.

8. Traveller

One of the oldest vampires Harry ever met, was possibly the most insane one as well. Harry never learned his name, but he remembered what he looked like. One of those creatures stuck in their past, wearing clothes hundreds of years out of fashion and breaking apart along the seams, talking in dialects no one used anymore, talking of things no one remembered and considered important.

The vampire, in fit of failing sanity, spoke of the sea and sailing and stars upon the open sea after dark. He had been a sailor before he had died, a young recruit in the royal navy, ages and ages ago. He laughed and spoke of busty women in dirty pubs and the taste of age old beer, the likes of they no longer even make. He spoke of the taste of old blood, rich and thick, nothing like the filthy sludge humans had in their veins these days. He spoke of time when coins had been made of gold and silver and the world had been still new and big and unexplored and _exciting._

"When world was worth looking at," the vampire murmured. "Those were the days."

His companion, a younger vampire who apparently had been turned by the sailor, rolled her eyes before carting her insane sire away, telling Harry never to take the words seriously. Travel upon water was nothing any vampire in their right mind should do. Still, in odd way, the insane vampire was possibly the happiest monster Harry had met before or since.

9. Tale

After spending some time learning to read in order to relieve his boredom, Harry broke into a library to find _the_ book. The book all new vampires spoke about, the books the elder ones laughed about, the book most of them considered with odd mixture of exasperation mixed it with strange, nostalgic fondness.

He found the book boring, too long and too wordy in the end, and some of the things that happened in it seemed a bit silly and made little sense, but he could see the odd annoyed adoration vampires felt for it. Bram Stoker's Dracula wasn't exactly the word to word guide to vampires, but it got some of the things right and wrote about vampires in awfully sophisticated manner.

And he got some amusement out of it. "Listen to them: the children of the night," the young vampire murmured at the sound of yelling and laughing and horrible tune with loud beat coming out in the street where the human teenagers were having their nightly amusement, and let out a rare laugh. "What music they make!"

10. Annihilation

On one unusual night, Harry saw the Hellsing. Two vehicles, first a nice car housing a young woman, little more than a girl, and her butler, other a truck with soldiers inside. They moved to the house where a group of vampires had been holding their bloody party. Alucard wasn't there, but by the looks of it, the humans didn't need the help anyway.

The gunshots and rapid machinegun fire echoed in the night and the flashes of light could be seen in every window of the house. The blonde women smoked a cigar while listening to this, calm and perfectly poised, like an undead massacre was part of her daily life. And, by the looks of it, it was.

At the end of the bullet rain, the group left the house burning, and were gone before the fire fighters arrived. And while the other humans moved to put out the fire, Harry pondered on what he had seen. He had heard rumours, about how the most famous vampire of all of United Kingdom had actually a human master. When he had first heard it, he had felt disappointed. Alucard, the monster of monsters, the blood hound among the vermin… with a human master? It was almost pitiful.

"Make sure to leave this place behind you, little worm, before my Master's people move in to clean it up. If they will see you, they will try to kill you," Alucard had said.

Harry left the burning house with the decision not to cross Alucard's master anytime soon. And perhaps take better care when and who he killed, just to be sure.

11. Sanctuary

Harry saw it in passing while looking for someone to eat. He was in completely wrong street at the time, he admitted. Nice, wealthy neighbourhood with plenty of well of people, well kept lawns, well washed cars, well brushed driveways. Not the sort to place to hunt in when you wanted to remain unnoticed.

And there it was, right left of him, protected by a metal fence, beautiful even in the shadows of the midnight. A garden, well kept and full of flowers, like those gardens one cans see in pictures and in the telly. Harry had almost forgotten that such things existed as he stared at the well kept flower beds and tediously trimmed trees beyond the fence. It seemed like something out of a fantasy, an illusion. Small corner untouched by the concrete and metal of outside world, a little temple of well cared nature.

He could imagine the owner and caretaker of the garden, walking along the lines of the trees and bushes and flower beds, satisfied with his or her work with the place, their own private place out of the reach of anyone else. Or maybe, just maybe, there was a little swing hanging from a tree branch somewhere outside Harry's line of vision and some days a small child ran happily in the garden…

That little garden and its owners never knew of the young vampire who for one solid month returned each and every night to feel the grass, touch the bushes, smell the flowers and enjoy the silence.

12. Jealousy

Harry intentionally once ventured out during the day time. He used the sewers and the under ground and remained in parking halls and such, out of the reach of the sun, until finally he found himself in a house across from a small kindergarten. He spent that day sitting there, at the window, just in the shadows and out of the beams of sunlight, and stared. There were children outside in the yard, running around the climbing frames and racing across the grass, swinging at the swing set, competing who could get highest. Harry stared for a long time, wondering and committing the moment in his memory.

When he left the place, he left a piece of himself behind and swore never to bother himself with what ifs and could've beens again. Jealousy was a bothersome, irritating feeling meant for pitiful fools who couldn't think for themselves and instead thought about others and what they had and what they wanted - and Harry was better than that. And so, at the age of eight and still in the body of a five year old, Harry left the last of his childhood behind.

13. Misunderstanding

"Where are your mum and dad, sweetie?"

In the night Harry heard those words often, much too often, so often that it was getting more than slightly annoying. Sure, he looked - and still technically was - a child, but he had grown up a bit faster than normal children did, thanks to what he now was. He had had to. And sure, none of those kind, gentle people who saw him knew that, all they saw was a child alone in the night, human child. But still… it got irritating eventually.

At first he had assured that his parents were near by, he was just waiting for them. And when people had insisted to stay with him until his so called parents returned, he had wiggled his way out of such situations by sprouting out concepts like he shouldn't talk to strangers and that his dad had told him to scream if odd old men in the night got too close, and what not.

Eventually he got tired of that, of course. He started just walking off or in a bad day, telling the people off. "My parents were drunkards who got themselves killed in a bleeding car crash. D'ya mind?" was one of his favourite, it made people turn pale. And sometimes, just for the fun of it, he messed with people, telling them weird stories. "I'm here waiting for my dad's dealer, he's supposed to bring dad that sugar powder dad really likes," and, "I'm supposed to stay here until someone buys me. Mom needs the money," were both fun to use though the aftermath could be problematic.

"Where are your mum and dad, kid?" a middle aged man asked Harry, who had been making his way towards the area where he usually easily found something to eat. Harry ignored the question this time, too hungry to bother, but the man pressed on. "You shouldn't be walking out here by your own," he said and Harry ignored him again, rolling his eyes. The man followed. "It's pretty late you know. How about I give you lift home?"

The words made Harry glance up to the man, who was taking out something from his pocket. "Tell you what," the man said, smiling oddly and fidgeting a little while holding out the lollipop. "I'll give you this on top of giving you the ride home. What do you say? Pretty… pretty sweet deal, don't you think?"

Harry regarded the fidgeting, slightly sweating man for a moment before nodding. "Well, I am hungry," he admitted and smiled at the triumphant look in the nervous man's eyes.

14. Independence

A vampire gang appeared on the streets where Harry usually hunted. It consisted mostly of kids, most of them just a little older than him. Harry had a feeling that one of them had been turned, maybe by accident like he had been, by an elder vampire and then the kid had turned all his friends until their entire little group was made of the undead. The leader of the gang, who was the oldest, brought his gang to a place with lot of homeless kids and offered them the same deal he had offered to his gang - immortality and assurance that they would never go hungry or oppressed again. Some accepted and were turned. Others couldn't, having been deflowered one way or another and thus would turn to ghouls instead of vampires.

When Harry came face to face with the gang, they offered to let him join them, be one of them. And, for a while, Harry did consider it. They were like him, vampires who would remain forever children in body even whilst being no longer quite childlike in their minds. Some of them were even nice and he rather liked them… "Come with us," they said. "And you won't be alone anymore."

But in the end he turned them down - for two reasons. One, he knew that Hellsing wouldn't allow a gang of child vampires to just roam around however they chose, the mere idea of children as vampires was too horrifying. And two, he had spend so many years of his life under someone else's will, first his relatives and then his unwilling sire. And even if the little gang wouldn't lock him up and make him do chores, his freedom still was something he wasn't quite willing to give up.

The gang left not much after and Harry never heard of them again. He suspected what had happened to them, but never found out for sure. In the end, he didn't really care either way.

15. Unavoidable

Hellsing was moving more diligently around London. Harry suspected it had something to do with the fact that the leader, and Alucard's master, was growing older and more confident as time went by. Either way, any vampire that killed too hastily or left behind too many clues was taken out quickly and efficiently. In return, the vampires were growing more cautious and secretive and Harry, not wishing to attract the attention of the organisation, did the same.

It happened almost by itself, what followed after that. Harry could no longer kill his victims, even if they were homeless kids no one would miss or investigate thoroughly, so he needed to find another way of feeding. The first one he approached about this was easy enough to seduce - a little girl, about six or seven years old, huddled in the corner of a street in late autumn. Frozen and starving, she reached for his hand the moment he offered it and followed him like lost puppy.

Trying to ignore the similarities between himself and his own sire, Harry kept the girl comfortable in his hideout of the moment. He made sure that the girl was warm, used his superhuman speed to steal the girl some food and in return the girl let him feed small amounts of her blood every now and then. Well, of course, the choice she made was only superficial, she wouldn't have had any chance of saying no had Harry forced his way, but it was easier to control her by making it seem like she had say in it.

Harry couldn't say that he and the girl had much in common, though. The girl was a dreamer who liked to spend the nights on a rooftop, staring at the barely visible stars, wondering about future. "One day I will go to a school," she often said. "I'll learn to read and write and I'll become real smart. So smart that people will give me money and I will have my own house…"

Harry didn't say much to that, only hovered near by and listened and wondered if he had been like her - would've been like her - if he had lived. "Maybe," he only offered, wondering if he should teach her how to read. It hadn't been that hard to learn.

In the end, he didn't teach her anything. By the time they had been together about few months, she started wondering how easy it must be to be a vampire and how nice it must be to never feel cold. "Will you turn me into a vampire?" she asked hopefully. "That way we could be together forever and you could teach me everything! We'd be like brother and sister."

Harry kicked her out not much after. All he wanted was an easy source of food - he had no use for a companion.

Thankfully, there were plenty of homeless kids to choose from.

16. Busy

It all escalated very quickly. The word of him travelled among the homeless kids and soon he no longer needed to find food, he was offered it - in exchange for shelter, food, money, even drugs. It was pretty easy at first, all he had to do was pick a certain child and keep them for a moment before moving onto the next. But as a vampire he was naturally a greedy creature and soon he was feeding from two children in the same week, then three and four, until suddenly he was somehow in charge of some of the homeless kids of London.

It wasn't that hard in the beginning. He found abandoned buildings and shelters and such for the kids to stay in and it wasn't much of a task to break into stores to get some food or money or clothing for them, whatever they needed. Human security measures didn't stand the strength and speed of a vampire, even one as small as he. It was almost amusing even, to find a new ways of going around the alarms and finding how to get in and out without leaving tracks. One could even say it was a learning experience.

By the time the other vampires noticed that Harry had a territory of sorts now, he had build a system and had even found favourites among the human kids. And since he moved around often in order to avoid suspicion - and a child who didn't grow could catch people's eyes, even if he travelled only in the night - it was natural that the other vampires in the area tried toeing the lines of his territory. It wasn't surprising, they were predators after all and very territorial creatures, if there was a territory, someone would want to claim it just for the sake of the fight if nothing else. And Harry was only one small child vampire, hardly a challenge.

But even if Harry was small, weak and still a child, he wasn't stupid and had learned thing or two from his times of stalking the Hellsing organisation. He had a dagger with a blade made from a silver cross stolen from a small church. It wasn't pretty, it wasn't exactly endurable and Harry couldn't touch the blade without getting his fingers burnt, but as long as he kept his hands on the handle, it did its job pretty well enough.

It was then that Harry found that vampire blood was a delicacy on its own right - and if killing a human strengthened him, it was nothing compared to the power of the blood of his own kind.

17. Undead

It was the third of Harry's _favourites_, who finally had the guts to ask. "What are you?" was the first question, easy enough to answer. "What does that mean?" followed immediately after, this one a bit trickier. The hardest one to answer was the last one, the question Harry's first food source hadn't really asked and instead had only speculated and had eventually built a false image of what she speculated. "What does it feel like?"

It took Harry a moment to figure what the boy actually meant - and another to realise just how insightful the question was. What did it feel like to be a vampire? It was… a very good question. Harry couldn't give a good answer, though.

He had been a human once, so naturally he should've been able to make the comparison. Human existence versus non-human existence… except it wasn't. He could barely remember what it had been like, to be human - what little he remembered was stained, splattered even, with hunger and cold and pain and terror. And loneliness. He couldn't recall much else except those weeks kept by his sire before dying, and stuttering memories of his human family… only little kinder than his sire.

And still he knew. If he has had the choice - if there would be any chance to change his existence now… he would've rather been human.

"It feels…" he hesitated, staring into the distance, searching for right words. "Wrong. Like empty stomach filled with stones."

He couldn't word it better, certainly not in way for a six year old human to understand. He could feel nothing the right way. Not cold or warm, pleasure of pain - even touch didn't feel _right_. And his mind was twisted, like circling around some blockade inside his head in order thin properly. He couldn't _feel_ right, couldn't think right. Looking at humans, any humans, made him certain that his emotions weren't right. And neither was his mind, forced into premature adulthood by his death and rebirth.

"Like if you're hungry and eat something bad and it makes you sick?" the human boy asked.

"Yeah, something like that," Harry nodded. "It feels like that all the time."

But it felt _better_ too. There were moments, like when he bit into warm flesh and filled his mouth, his stomach, his very being, with blood… As a human he had never felt anything like the _bliss_ of sucking blood. And all the things that blood carried in it… not to mention about those rare, beautiful moments, when his bite was enough to kill…

He didn't tell any of that to his companion of the moment. The boy was better off not knowing - and Harry couldn't be bothered with running after him if he had decided to run away.

18. Meeting

Harry met Alucard for the second time face to face about three years after their first meeting in the abandoned warehouse. It was a brief meeting and one could even say that it was all business.

A female vampire, a foreigner, had appeared to the neighbourhood and landed her eyes on Harry's kids. The young vampire had tolerated it only long enough to find the right tools to take her down and then he had done just that. It had been easy too. Masking his vampirism he had been approached by the woman who then had whisked him away, intending on doing the same to him as she had done to the kids of Harry's territory.

Alucard, sent by his Hellsing organisation to deal with the woman, appeared only little after Harry had managed to immobilise the female vampire and had been slowly taking her blood. The boy had no intention of giving the woman a quick death after what she had done to his food source - two of whom were his favourites - nor had he been intending to let her get away. She, like the few other vampires Harry had killed, would hand her strength over to him before dying, Harry was going to make sure of that.

Alucard, of course, found the entire situation hilarious.

19. Limitations

Not long after meeting with Alucard the second time, he found that some of the oldest and most powerful vampires had certain… abilities. Longevity, physical strength, speed and rapid healing were only the basic ones which all vampires, even he as young as he was, had. The older ones, though… they were something else.

Alucard was the pinnacle of power and everyone knew it. There were rumours and whispers about him and in the end no one knew for sure where the limits of his abilities went. It was only the younger ones and the new comers that didn't believe. Harry himself had witnessed one of Alucard's abilities, and since no other vampire he knew of could regenerate from being turned into a puddle of blood and bits of flesh, he was rather certain that there was some truth in the stories.

Alucard wasn't the only one. Harry had seen one elder vampire, possibly one of the oldest living in London, who had turned into a cluster of bats and flied away. There was also one ageless female vampire living in the outskirts of the city who could fade into shadows in a way which couldn't be trickery of speed. He was rather certain that they weren't the only ones, they were just the only ones he had seen - the older vampires seemed to be pretty good at staying unseen.

At the time he thought it was really something vampires gained with age, though. That as they grew older, they grew more powerful and eventually the limitations of usual vampires stopped limiting them. He thought that maybe, if he lived to be hundred or two hundred or older, then he could maybe do it as well.

He started thinking differently when, after running into a strange priest who had tried to shoot him with terrifyingly powerful bullets, he suddenly found himself on the other side of the town in the blink of an eye.

20. Conclusion

In the night before his eleventh birthday, Harry headed out of London and to Surrey. He wasn't sure why, because of curiosity or some sort of necessity, or maybe because of boredom? Or maybe he had finally grown enough to either move beyond his past or confront it. It didn't matter. He headed to the place of his human childhood and followed death-born instincts and memory sharpened by vampirism right to the street where he had once lived.

Nothing had changed. The lawn was still well taken care of, the azaleas still grew in the front, everything was still so very perfect and tidy. His uncle seemed to have a new car, proudly standing in the driveway for all to see and, by the looks of it, his cousin now had a sibling. While staring at the two bicycles leaning into the side of the garage, one for slightly older boy and another for a girl just starting to learn how to ride a bike judging by the colour and design, Harry felt something he hadn't felt in a long time.

Sadness.

Was this why he had been abandoned, to make way for another child?

He pondered on it as he made his way into and then through the house. He inspected the cupboard under the stairs - now home of cleaning supplies - before taking look at the pictures in the sitting room. Dudley had grown in height and width and was now what Harry would never be - physically eleven years of age. While eying the pictures, Harry noticed the new child. She had light brown hair and was quickly taking Dudley's example as far as physical health went.

All this had happened while Harry had died, been imprisoned for two years and then lived in the streets like a rat, like a monster.

Unnatural quiet fell over the undead as he headed upstairs to see his family. They were all sleeping and blissfully unaware of him as he watched over them, still wondering. While eying aunt Petunia and uncle Vernon, he wondered were they still the same, spoiling their children rotten, gossiping about neighbours, boasting about their lives. While in the new girl's room, he wondered what was her name and if she was like Dudley had been in her age, all those years ago. While in Dudley's room, he wondered if he was still a bully, still greedy, still getting everything he wanted.

He wondered how it would've turned out if he had still been there… but in the end it didn't matter. And Harry didn't care either way. What ifs and could've beens were concepts he didn't waste his time on, neither were possible lives left unlived. Whatever his family had became in his absence, he didn't care.

That didn't stop him from setting the house on fire. He spared his female cousin on the grounds of not knowing her and her being born after he had been abandoned. The rest weren't so lucky, as he made sure that they would stay right where they were until there was nothing but ashes left of them.

No one had ever had complimented him on his forgiveness and no one probably ever would.

x

Like said, this is a companion/continuation to Vermin Control, but not exactly a sequel. I am planning a second chapter to Vermin Control, several actually, but they are a bit stuck. In attempt to unstuck the story, I wrote this one as sort of "timeline" of Harry Potter, the child vampire. I am planning for more of this, but it might be that I won't continue it, so I tried to write it so that it works both as a first chapter of a longer story and as a one shot. If I do continue, it will be drabbles all the way, each chapter with about 20 drabbles of various lenghts and themes and so on.

My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.


	2. Whispers to Hope

**Little worm  
**

21. Whispers

If one had the right sort of ears to listen, London was a symphony of rumours. For longest time Harry had only had the ears for the rumours of his sort - vampires. And, despite normal people's ignorance, despite Hellsing's diligence, despite _everything_, there were so many of those around that his ears were deaf to pretty much anything else for years. There lived surprisingly many vampires in London alone, and each one of them carried a story with them. That was enough stories - most which changed every night into a new story - to occupy anyone's ears for years.

But there were always secrets underneath the secrets - and secrets inside those secrets as well. Rumours, gossip, stories - ghost stories even. Of other sorts of creatures except for vampires and their ilk. Of werewolves and goblins and giants and all sorts of beasts… Not many believed them, though. Harry hadn't either. Even for a vampire, the mere existence of undead monsters alone was enough to handle, very few were looking to add more creatures into the mix.

Magic, though… magic was different. There were rumours and _rumours_ about magic, and Harry believed one set. He couldn't afford _not_ to believe when a certain dark powers surrounded his very existence. Spells, enchantments, seals… Many vampires used certain amount of magic, and others, like the most famous one of them all, were bound by it.

But the other rumours, though, the ones about the hidden society of magicians living beyond the normal world, hidden in nonexistent corners and spaces that are not spaces behind impenetrable walls… he had never believed those. They seemed like tales told to too young vampires to mess with their heads, tales believed by those vampires who had crossed large bodies of water too many times, tales of dreamers and lunatics. Too fantastic to be reality. Little bit of magic in hands of few rare experts, that he could believe, that he knew to be a fact, but entire society…? If there was such a thing, surely more people would know.

It was somewhat annoying that an owl of all things seemed intent on proving him wrong.

22. Imagination

Harry had two distinctive mental images associated with the word "wizard".

One was the clichéd fantasy book image of old wizened men in long robes and odd hats, leaning to their mighty staffs, image that still stuck in his mind from his human childhood when he had glimpsed a document about some famous fantasy novel in the telly. He knew it was wrong and childish and very wrong, but it wouldn't leave him and, maybe, it still amused the lingering child in the corner of his mind.

The other was the more realistic image of fully modern humans who had been lucky enough to receive knowledge most people considered mere fiction - who had maybe found a book on magic or been chosen as students by one of the precious few who knew magic. This image was associated with religion and vampire hunters as most of Harry's encounters with magic mostly consisted of watching vampires being exterminated by various means.

Dumbledore didn't fit either images and still the man fit both of them. He was positively ancient, more than little wizened and endowed with long silver beard - and though his staff was actually a wand, he still would've looked right at home as the wise old man of fantasy book. But the man's eyes, though… the eyes was what made Harry associate him with the modern magicians. It was impossibly to put to words, but in the man's eyes there was icy ruthlessness and that same rawness Harry had seen in the eyes of vampire hunters who wielded magic.

The fact that Dumbledore lifted his wand in attack the moment they saw each other also supported the vampire hunter image.

23. Veracity

"I must admit that when we received your letter, I did not believe it. For years we had thought you dead," Dumbledore murmured more to himself than to Harry, who was watching him cautiously from a little distance away. The wizard didn't notice as he went on, pacing and muttering. "We didn't know how or when… but we were certain it had happened. Absolutely certain." The man frowned. "A boy of mere five years, perished in the dark of the night, like flame of a candle, blown out…"

The vampire kept watching silently. He had questions churning in his mind, competing for his attention, trying to make him ask them, but he held back. He didn't want to interrupt the man - and the man's words were offering him quite bit information.

"We questioned the Dursleys, of course!" the old man nodded, as if trying to reassure someone. Himself probably. "They were your family, they took care of you so they should also know what had happened to you… and they knew. Of course… they knew…" he trailed away with a dangerous frown, looking absolutely enraged one moment - and suddenly sorrowful the next. "It was my fault. Indeed, who else's could it be? I should have set a sentry, someone watching the Dursleys. But I was too trusting, entirely too trusting… too willing to give a second chance…"

Harry grit his teeth to keep himself from jumping back when Dumbledore suddenly turned around to face him, odd glint in his eyes. "I tried to change, you see?" the old man said - or perhaps pleaded, pleaded him to understand. His wrinkled hands reached out for Harry, and he took a step forward - only to stop when Harry took a step backwards to keep the distance. Undisturbed, the old man continued. "I was so very harsh in the war, and the war before that one. I was always so harsh, so ruthless, so unwilling to see the good in people. So I tried, I tried so very hard… to be kind, to look beyond the surface, to give a second chance… only to see it become your undoing! Yours!"

For a moment Harry expected the man to add "when it should've been mine," to the sentence, but Dumbledore didn't. And there was a world of meaning in that.

"And so you died…" the old man whispered, his hands still reaching towards Harry, but not coming forward this time. "And for six years I believed you dead…"

Harry blinked slowly. There was dozen things he could've asked, said. He wanted to know how the man knew him, how he knew Dursleys, how come the man could've put out sentries to watch them, how he had found out about his death, what war he was talking about… "You weren't wrong," was all Harry said in the end.

The old man looked down to him, taking him in tiredly, like man who had been getting ready to fight for his honour only to have someone push it aside as unimportant. But despite having the fight sucked out of him, he lost none of his sharpness. "No," he finally said, quietly, knowingly. "It seems I was not."

24. Misjudged

"I don't care," was Harry's verdict to a lengthy explanation of the magical world. It wasn't completely correct statement, though. The picture's Dumbledore painted with his words, about the possibility of doing magic, of seeing wonders, of learning enchantments that could make him seem older, taller, stronger, of meeting "his kind" - wizards, not vampires… some of those things were interesting. For a human child they would've been tempting beyond belief, wondrous, magical in every meaning of the word…

But Harry wasn't a human child. And though he was tempted, he was beyond all a realist. Dumbledore had already admitted that Harry couldn't go to the school the way he was. Though Hogwarts didn't deny dark creatures such as Harry, it was always safer that they… weren't too open about their affiliations. The enchantments to make Harry look older were not only a possibility, they were a necessity.

Also, Harry had not missed the way the wizard twitched when Harry asked about vampires of magical world.

Dumbledore tried to explain further, of course, make it all seem greater, more alluring. He spoke of incredible magic, he spoke of places and creatures and people and things Harry could learn. Harry could get friends, friends who would actually understand him, nothing like muggle children… And when Dumbledore realised how thrilled that concept made the vampire, he mentioned Harry's parents. Surely Harry would want to make them proud, surely he would want to be like them, follow their footsteps?

"I don't see how I could be any more like them," Harry answered flatly. "I'm already dead, just like they are. They must be _so_ proud." He smiled slightly when the old man opened his mouth to contradict. "Also, that is not what I meant. I meant that I don't care what the magical world is like."

The old man looked helpless for a moment. "Then…?"

"You can mask it however you want, but I can see it. There is some reason why you want me to come," the vampire said. "I'm too much trouble to bother, and yet you've bothered more than little. There is something you want from me." A short silence followed the words. "Tell me honestly, what will you do if I say no?"

The old man eyed him for a moment before dropping the last of his act as kind old wizard and becoming the hunter hiding underneath. "I will force you if I have to," he answered simply and honestly. "By any means necessary."

Harry nodded. He had figured as much.

25. Delusion

His appearance was an illusion, a fabrication of an old man's imagination, blend of his own features and Dumbledore's memories of what Harry's father had looked like at his age. Harry adjusted the collar of his new jacket, wondering idly how did it worked. He didn't feel any different, he could still tell the edges of his existence and the reach of his short frame. And yet, he was foot taller, he was heavier, thicker, stronger and generally older than he had been in years…

"It's partially a charm called glamour, which can change a person's features and appearance by placing a few precise illusions on their person. Part of the charm work I did, the most important part, perhaps, is the notice-me-not charm. Some wizards are capable of seeing through glamours, but the second charm should make it a bit harder for them to see what's truly underneath…"

The illusion was bound to a pendant Harry now wore underneath his clothes. As long as he wore the pendant, he would look like normal boy of his true age - at least until Dumbledore would readjust the glamour accordingly so that it would seem like he continued growing naturally. Harry knew that there was more to the pendant than that, though. He could feel it against his skin, a hum of power, ticking sense of being watched, being contained… And he knew without any doubt that he could not remove the jewellery. The chain didn't even have a lock.

Harry adjusted the collar again, his finger tracing along the golden chain before pushing it under his shirt. Decisively he moved away from the mirror which refused to show his reflection, neither the one of a physically five year old vampire, nor the eleven year old human. It didn't matter though. Both of his appearances were illusions now. Vampire or human, both his appearances still showed a boy.

Not the dog he had become.

26. Shop

Dumbledore only took him to one shop in Diagon Alley in late of the night, saying that Harry wouldn't need to visit any other places there - the man would have everything necessary fetched later on. This place, however, required Harry to be personally present.

"Well… I must say, I had been wondering when I would see you, Mr. Potter, and this was not quite what I had in mind," said odd, wild eyed shop keeper at the sight of him, whist Harry found himself slightly distracted by the feel of magic. He had felt it when they had entered the magical shopping street, but the wand shop seemed like nexus of it all, teeming with sparks and whistles and untapped potential. It was very… interesting. And slightly annoying too.

"Well, no matter. We will find the right wand for you regardless, not to fret…" the shop keeper muttered and went on, measuring Harry's actual body underneath the illusion - to Dumbledore's slight annoyance - before starting to present various wands and snatching them from Harry before he managed to actually do anything.

Harry managed to touch fourteen wands - two of which caused bit of damage to the shop and one of which apparently was somehow special, but did nothing for Harry - before Ollivander handed him the right one. It was a warm shaded wand and felt absolutely perfect in his small hand.

"Cherry with phoenix feather, seven and half inches, very adaptive," Ollivander said, looking both intrigued and disappointed - probably because the special wand of his hadn't "chosen" Harry. Harry didn't much care, he was too intrigued by the item in his hand. It felt like his hand had always been reaching for it, and only now he knew it. Adaptive, though… what was that supposed to mean?

"Very good," Dumbledore said, looking curious and oddly proud. "Let me pay for that and then we can be on our way."

The vampire glanced at the wizard curiously before pursing his lips in thought. Dumbledore was going to let him keep the wand? Well, he didn't even know what to do with it yet, but even so… by what he had heard so far, a wand was a better weapon than his little knife with a blessed blade. Wasn't Dumbledore worried in the least about giving it to him?

"Well then, let us be off Harry," the ancient wizard said cheerfully after handing the requested money to the shop keeper. "We have long way to travel tonight."

"Yes…" Harry fingered the wand and smiled. "…as you wish, my Master." He could live with adaptive.

Judging by the look of horror Dumbledore gave him, the man would have few problems with it, though.

27. Possession

It was probably the "Master" comment that made Dumbledore allow Harry have one last day of freedom. He left Harry at the same place where they had met, in the abandoned building where Harry had been living at the time, saying that he'd come to fetch the vampire in the next day at the same time. To Harry it sounded rather like "go out and make your peace with your former lifestyle", but he appreciated it. Hogwarts lasted for seven years and Harry had a feeling that Dumbledore had plans for all those seven years and more, and before that Harry had some loose ends to tie.

It was somewhat eye-opening, though. Glamours and magically binding pendants aside, it was testament of Dumbledore's power that the man left without single threat or order. The wand had been like that too - Dumbledore had confidently handed a weapon to Harry, without batting an eyelash. Like the man knew without pain of doubt that Harry had no hope of threatening him or defy him in any manner.

Deciding to wonder about his human Master later, Harry headed out of his temporary shelter and to the streets. He had a territory to cover in span of one day and night, and lot to do. He needed to meet with the vampires closest to his territory, he needed to talk to few of his favourites and deal with some of the threats he had been leaving until later. He didn't care _that_ much about his kids, not even his favourite ones, but the idea of them being overtaken by someone else… it was unacceptable. He had worked hard to keep his territory. He wasn't going to let it slip from him in his absence.

Also, he wasn't going to miss his chance of last free meal.

28. Chosen

Though the weeks spend in Hogwarts had been interesting, Harry had soon found himself looking forward to the start of the school. Mostly because it was going to give him little more freedom and he wouldn't need to stay with his Master all the time and instead would be sleeping in one of the four houses. Dumbledore wasn't a bad Master, but despite the daily meal of blood - gotten from muggle blood bank, though Harry didn't know how - and the limitless store of bloodpops - Harry's new favourite candy - the containment wasn't agreeing with him and only the knowledge of how powerful his Master was kept Harry from taking drastic measures.

Of course, when the day came, Harry was under two dozen rules, all enforced by the binding pendant. Mostly it went along the lines of "no killing anyone", and "no attacking anyone", and "no feeding on blood without permission", and so on. Harry had already found loopholes in the "no attacking anyone" rule which he was intending to use to his favour if the situation ever called it, but the rules were still binding.

But despite the rules, September first arrived and so did the students. Harry of course hadn't been in the train but it was easy enough to slip among the first years and act like he had been there all the time. He kept his eyes open and his mouth shut, listened and memorised and before professor McGonagall started explaining the sorting ceremony, Harry already knew the names of seven of the first years and had memorised the faces and surface behaviour of most of them.

And realised that it was going to be hard to stay among so many people, virgins at that, for the following month. Just watching them made him hungry.

The sorting ceremony commenced soon after and Harry got the chance to attach names to the faces. Dumbledore had mentioned few of them and even given some orders about some - like Draco Malfoy, Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe, and few others, all whom Harry was meant watch - but there were several he hadn't yet heard of. After memorising the names and faces and subtle differences between the Patil twins, he looked up as his name was called and hush fell to the hall.

Dumbledore had given him orders about this thing as well. Well, they had been more like strong suggestions and opinions but Harry knew an order when he saw one and Dumbledore's barely veiled aversion towards Slytherin house was more than guideline. Whatever Dumbledore's goals were, Harry in Slytherin wasn't involved.

"Fascinating, very fascinating," the hat murmured to his ear the moment it was placed on his head. "And not quite as cunning as your master thinks you are. Not Slytherin then? Not to worry, you wouldn't fit that house in any case, no shard of ambition in you. But no, you wouldn't fit Gryffindor either, would you? Not quite brave, no, not indeed…"

Harry wondered for a moment whether to be insulted or not before shrugging his shoulders. The hat was right. He wasn't particularly ambitious. Not in the scale of usual vampires anyway. And he never fought when he could run, never ran when he could hide. Bravery was hazardous to survival and Harry preferred surviving… for now.

"You don't care much for knowledge either, do you? Oh you are bright enough, I'll give you that… learned to read in such a short time… but it hasn't been much use to you, has it? Nor do you think any knowledge ever will…"

The vampire wondered if that meant he was going to get kicked out. He didn't seem to fit the houses at all. Maybe vampires just couldn't fit in at places like Hogwarts…

"Oh, no, no, no, there is one more house left, and you fit it perfectly," the hat chuckled. "Possessiveness, you see, is only one step more ruthless than loyalty. The things you did for you territory… quite hard work indeed. And you're strong believer in equality, it seems. Humans, vampires, witches, wizards… they all die the same to you, they all seem like food to you. Quite fair, that, and that makes you perfect stuff for HUFFLEPUFF!"

Harry blinked with surprise and smothered the urge to start laughing madly as the hat shouted the last word out for all to hear. While some the students and teachers seemed oddly disappointed, even whilst giving him the proper applause, the vampire wondered how many others like him he was going to find in the house of so called "cast offs"

He needed to also ask his Master whether or not he knew how mad the hat was.

29. Mellow nature

Harry rather liked being a Hufflepuff despite what the Slytherins and some of the Gryffindors said. They seemed to think that it indicated some level of ineptness on his part that he had been sorted to the house of badger. Ravenclaws didn't seem to care and Hufflepuffs, naturally, were proud. The reason why Harry liked being a Hufflepuff was the fact that his housemates had tact that most humans seemed to miss. Unlike the rest of the houses, Hufflepuffs offered their hands, introduced themselves, and were satisfied with that. The rest of the students of the school stared and whispered. It was quite irritating.

Also, none of the Hufflepuffs had exactly shoved themselves at him. Draco Malfoy had, practically pushing one of Harry's house mates to the floor in order to get close enough to introduce himself - and to give his grand advice of, "You'll soon find that some people and some houses are better than others. Even though you've been sorted to Hufflepuff, you shouldn't degrade yourself to deal with the wrong sort. Thankfully, I can help you there."

Then he had done the mistake of offering Harry his hand for shake. The bruising left behind by the vampire had shown on his pale, pale skin for the following two weeks.

Hufflepuffs also didn't question things too much, didn't push into other people's business. They weren't stupid and noticed pretty soon that Harry didn't eat at the great hall, that he rarely if ever ventured out of the castle and that he never really slept… but despite everything, not one of them said a thing about it. Harry didn't even have to sprout out the lies invented by Dumbledore about his eating disorder and that he had rare disease that made him vulnerable to sunlight and all that. If it wasn't their business, the Hufflepuffs never asked. The only time one of them did, the prefect only wanted to make sure that Harry was "eating okay" and that he wasn't going hungry.

They were so nice that Harry wanted to eat them.

30. Grudge

"Harry Potter. Our new celebrity." Snape didn't like him much. "Potter! What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?" Make that at all. "Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?" It seemed that the man disliked him. "Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter? What is the difference, potter between monkshood and wolfsbane?" No, he loathed him. "Useless monster." And he was too smart for his own good.

"Professor, did you know that healthy human male has about ten pints of blood and your heart beats it to move at the speed of about a mile per hour at best, and that you could bleed to death in few minutes if, say, your internal jugular vein was ruptured?"

Harry didn't much care for the man either. After the class was over, he stayed behind to demonstrate his theory.

Sadly, Dumbledore's spells on him prevented him from killing the man entirely and later on his Master fixed the rules of the sealing pendant to include "physical harm in name of demonstration is strictly forbidden" to make sure Harry couldn't use that loophole again.

Well, at least Snape didn't bother him again.

31. Master

Dumbledore had plans, plenty of them, but despite the fact that he kept Harry close by, he didn't let the vampire in on them. All Harry really knew that he was involved, as was the Dark Lord from ten years ago who had tried and failed to kill Harry. And though the vampire didn't really care about the magical world or it's fights or it's dark lords, Dumbledore's attention on the matter made him curious. Anything worthy of as much concern as Dumbledore had for the matters concerning Voldemort was something interesting.

Dumbledore himself was interesting. He was cunning and smart - knowledgeable in that wise-old-man way and sharp in the way of a hunter. There were lies and lies woven around the man and underneath it all there was something dark and twisted, hidden from rest of the world. Also, the man had a fascinating mind - which was often displayed in his actions.

He both loathed way Harry addressed him, and liked to have people subservient. He was accepting - already knew and appreciated the fact that Harry was no child despite his physical appearance - but in the same time he enforced his own vision no matter what the reality was - like with Harry's glamour. He saw more than humans usually did and remembered _everything_, every single detail in precision worthy of a vampire - and of course used it all to his benefit.

The most interesting of all was how he interacted with Harry. The man could go so easily from the grandfather act to the behaviour of the cool, manipulative general of few wars too many. One moment he could be bantering about the oddest, insignificant things like sweets and socks and the next he could be talking about people who needed to be watched out for, who might needed to be neutralised eventually, who needed to be controlled.

"Good evening, my boy. I got the bloodpops you wanted, they are in sitting room," the old man greeted him calmly when Harry entered his office. As the vampire went to dutifully fetch them from the room behind the wizard's desk, the man added. "I hope you did as I asked, Harry. I want a thorough report on the first year students. Especially the Slytherins."

Harry smiled thinly, glancing at the man's back. "I have it," he answered, giving considering look at his Master's neck and wondering just how easy it would be snap it. Despite everything, Dumbledore was an old man. It would be so easy - and so very enjoyable… Dumbledore was a good Master, better than a vampire could perhaps hope for, but Harry still would've preferred freedom. And killing Dumbledore just for the sake of killing him would've been a pleasure indeed.

"Also, I added a new layer of seals to your pendant," Dumbledore said cheerfully without looking up from his paper work. "They will prevent you from physically harming me."

The child vampire grinned ferally. His Master was good.

32. Duel

Harry wasn't quite sure where Malfoy got the idea from. It possibly had something to do with the bruised hand, but still the pale boy had the oddest impression that they were enemies. Which was why, when Harry offhandedly commented on something he had heard about recent flying lesion with Slytherins and Gryffindors, the pale platinum blonde challenged him into a duel.

"What's the matter? Never heard of a Wizard's duel?"

Harry accepted just for the sake of the spectacle Malfoy was making in the Great Hall, not because of any actual interest of fighting the brat. He could easily tell that one, Malfoy had no intention of showing up and two, Malfoy wouldn't have a chance if he did. Harry only knew how to do two spells so far, but he had already figured out how being able to turn matchsticks into needles and making objects fly could end up with the result of dead bodies. Of course, all one really needed was the levitation charm and either tall space or a sharp object. In either case, Malfoy was many things, but he wasn't a killer.

Still, Harry headed to the appointed place in the night just to properly witness that Malfoy didn't show up. It ended up being interesting night. He ran into three irritating Gryffindors on the way - one who had wanted to see the duel, another who had wanted to stop it and third who had gotten lost - into one even more irritating poltergeist and then into a bloody great three headed dog because of the bleeding Gryffindors. And at the end of the night, Malfoy newer showed up.

Harry thanked him for the adventure by practicing Wingardium Leviosa on his shoe just as he was about to step down the stairs and then watching him as he crashed down and broke his leg. Of course Madam Pomfrey healed it within few minutes and Dumbledore added "physical harm via spell practice directed at a person's clothes is strictly forbidden," into the rules after wards, and took away another loophole, but that was okay. Harry had enjoyed his night and still had several other loopholes to use.

33. Questions.

"Harry, I have to ask you… Did you have anything to do with the death of the Dursleys?"

Harry glanced up to the man from the book he had been chuckling at - one about vampires that Quirrell seemed to vouch by. "Would it make any difference, Master?" he asked.

"Don't call me that," Dumbledore snapped before considering his words for a moment. Then he sighed while leaning back in his chair. "I suppose it doesn't matter now," he then admitted.

"Then yes," the vampire answered. "I tied them to their beds while they were asleep and set the house on fire."

There was a moment of silence as Dumbledore contemplated the words. The old man opened his mouth to speak before deciding against it and frowning instead. "I guess it's better I don't know how many people have died by your hand," he murmured more to himself than to Harry. Then he frowned. "Though, since you really did do it, that means… you left the youngest alive intentionally?"

The vampire shrugged, turning his attention to the book in his lap. "Why is it, Master, that though you knew I died six years ago, no one at Hogwarts is slightest bit surprised to see me alive?" he asked, turning a page. "And, when you thought I wasn't even around to receive it, you still sent me the Hogwarts acceptation letter?"

The old man smiled thinly. "Would it make any difference?"

"Not in the slightest."

"I was intending to have someone impersonate you under glamours or possibly under potions that can change a person's appearance," the headmaster answered. "The letter was sent to that person, to see how well the disguise worked. It was never meant to reach you and it wouldn't have… if you hadn't been alive."

Harry smiled. "I left her alive because I didn't know her."

"Maybe there is some hope for you yet, Harry."

"No need to insult me, Master."

34. Forward

"Troll - in the dungeons - thought you ought to know…"

Humans worked them selves so easily into panic. Harry watched the screaming with mild interest, noting how some put down their foods like it was poisonous somehow, and ginned. it had been worth it to follow his Master's orders and join the bleeding Halloween feast, it seemed. It seem to be quite entertaining.

The look his Master sent to his direction gave him clear orders as Dumbledore stood up to yell the crowd to remain calm and head to their common rooms. While wondering if his Master had realised that he had just sent the Hufflepuffs and the Slytherins right to the trolls' direction, Harry stood up to follow the perky Hufflepuff prefect and make sure they wouldn't get themselves killed on the way.

"You know, I think I heard some Gryffindors talking about some girl being in the bathroom all day. She might not know about the troll…" he mused almost if to himself while his Master hurried past him. The old man slowed down and Harry continued. "Hermione or something like that. In the third floor I think."

As Dumbledore headed off with more speed in his steps, Harry stretched his hands, his good deed of the day done. Maybe that and playing bodyguard to his house would earn him enough brownie points for his Master to let him have a _real_ meal for once. He was really getting sick of medical blood.

"Well, then, what are you waiting for?" the boy right next to Harry suddenly said, making him realise that someone except for Dumbledore had been listening. He grabbed hold of Harry's hand and started dragging the vampire off. "Come on! She might get herself killed or something if we don't do anything."

The boy, despite being rather Gryffindorish, was a Hufflepuff, little older than Harry was supposed to be. He also apparently had a saving people thing going on because he braved the empty halls without hesitation in order to supposedly save the Gryffindor girl. Annoyed and slightly amused, Harry followed him, wondering if magic somehow muddled people's common sense and survival instincts.

After almost running into Snape once, they found the girl and then the troll right outside the bathroom from where they found her. It was the same girl who had tried to stop him from "duelling" Malfoy some nights back. Harry didn't have much time to ponder on that revelation before Cedric almost got himself killed by actually attacking the enormous troll and Harry realised he had to save his idiotic housemate. That was pretty alright, though. With a happy grin, the young vampire surged forward with his blessed knife, which had seen no action for months now.

He had found a troll's weakness to be it's skull, traumatised two students possibly for life and managed to get himself covered by disgusting smelling liquids by the time professors McGonagall and Snape found them. "What do you know," he said casually as Hermione fainted and Cedric staggered to the bathroom to throw up. "Trolls actually have red blood."

35. Continue

"It seems you've had a few brushes with young Miss Granger during your stay here," Dumbledore noted out later that night. He had his wand aimed at Harry and was looking thoughtful. "First in that night when you tried to duel young Mr. Malfoy and now…"

"I've also had a few brushes with Snape. You know, I think he's either trying to get into the closed off corridor with the three headed dog of yours, or there are lot of things you're not telling me," Harry grinned back while holding his arms wide open so that his Master could siphon all the horrid smelling troll blood from his clothes.

The old man gave him unimpressed look. "There are several things I'm not telling you for very good reason," he answered, making a face at a bit of grey flesh sticking to Harry's chest. "I've looked into Miss Granger's school records," he then continued calmly. "It seems that she is being teased by rest of her house because of her performance in classes so far. Which is quite the pity considering how smart she seems to be…"

"Fascinating," Harry answered flatly.

"Isn't it just?" the headmaster asked with a cheerful smile. "We humans are certainly odd people, so often being hostile towards our betters."

"Usually for a good reason." Harry rolled his eyes. "You getting somewhere with this?"

"I think it would be most beneficial if Miss Hermione would be allowed to continue on the path she has started without disturbance."

"You want me to make sure that Gryffindors don't bother your little star student?" the vampire asked, raising his eyebrow. What part of his appearance gave the impression of bodyguard? "I'd rather just eat her."

"Whether or not you have done it intentionally or not so far, I want you to keep an eye on her in the future as well," Dumbledore answered without giving his words any acknowledgement. He pulled back his wand to eye the work he had done to Harry's soiled robes - not so soiled anymore. "She's a brilliant student and if she continues as such thorough her school years, she will be one of the most intelligent witches to grace our world, no doubt."

"Ah," Harry nodded. Dumbledore wanted him to watch the girl and make sure the girl would be at his disposal if necessary in the future. He looked down to his clean, non-smelling clothes. "That's more like it."

36. Discovery

Humans were bipolar creatures. Maybe Harry would've been one too at Hermione's and Cedric's age if he actually had been allowed to get so far, but watching it from the viewpoint from total outsider, it was quite interesting. They pounced back so fast.

At first Harry had thought that getting closer to young Miss Granger would be quire difficult, considering that he had almost showered her in troll brains. But after few days she was no longer flinching in his presence and actually sat down next to him in library where Harry had been - somewhat irritably - trying to find spells for clean killing. And she wasn't only one - Cedric, strangely enough, was following her and promptly sat down to Harry's other side. Neither said anything, just sat there and studied whatever they were studying silently whilst he eyed them confusedly.

It wasn't the only time either, and it didn't only happen at library. In corridors and outside in rare rainy days, they would join him if they ever saw him alone - and considering that most people were giving him wide berth for some reason, he usually was alone. Cedric also started dragging Harry to breakfast, lunch and dinner with him, and sometimes Hermione joined them. Whether Harry's "lack of appetite" bothered them, they never commented on it. Before Harry could figure out what the hell they were doing, they were casually talking amongst themselves over Harry or next to him, eventually starting to look at him for input.

Soon the vampire realised that the two humans thought he was insane and had decided to keep an eye on him so that he wouldn't kill anyone and try and see if they could "help him" in the meanwhile.

37. Similar

Though Harry hadn't expected to see him, possibly in years, his third meeting with Alucard happened right there, in Hogwarts grounds. Again, it was mostly business but Harry had a feeling that Alucard had intentionally taken his business to right way to see Harry. It was hard to not think too much of himself after that - but still, it was _Alucard_. It was impossible to not get ego out of the man's slightest interest.

"Interesting place, this," the elder vampire mused after disposing his rogue vampire just at the edge between Hogwarts yard and the Forbidden Forest. "And interesting piece of jewellery, that," he nodded towards Harry.

Fingering the pendant through his robes, Harry wondered for a moment if Alucard could see through solid matter. "Isn't it just?" he asked instead and smirked mirthlessly. "A human made it for me."

"Really?" the other asked with a grin. "I do believe you're mimicking me, my little busy drone."

"Aren't we all?"

38. Foothold

Despite their sudden "closeness" and despite the fact that neither of them were exactly stupid, Cedric and Hermione were rather blind. Harry could count half dozen times his act had slipped around them, when he had commented something just wrong way or done something wrongly. Still, they never drew the natural conclusion that he wasn't human, instead they kept stubbornly clinging onto their theory of him slightly insane, rather than him being slightly _dead_.

However, blindness seemed not to be trait shared by all humans of Hogwarts.

"Please," Fred Weasley said after he had his twin had ambushed Harry in a corridor and he had woken up tied to a chair in abandoned classroom. "We figured it out ages ago. You never eat, you never go out when it's sunlight, you're constantly eating bloodpops of all things…"

"It was obvious," George agreed, casually leaning onto his twin's shoulder. "Besides, you don't look quite right, you don't walk quite right. It's like you have an afterimage walking ahead of you. That took about a week to figure out, but it wasn't _that_ hard. You have an illusion over you."

"And then there's the fact that you're at Dumbledore's office all the time," Fred nodded, motioning towards Harry's chest with his wand. "It took us ages to work out the whole pendant thing, but eventually we did. Mostly thanks to our great and gracious headmaster himself. Despite everything, he isn't exactly unnoticeable or quiet and we've had eavesdropping methods for years. Nothing happens in this castle without us hearing about it."

Harry grinned ferally. It seemed that he had been wrong about these two. And so had been most of the school. Fun loving pranksters? These two were _dangerous_, that was what they were. And even Dumbledore didn't know… "Very good," he said. "You know a lot. Then you should know these ropes won't hold me too long."

"They'll hold you long enough for us to make our proposal," the twins said and did just that.

39. Enjoyment

It was surprising to find that he had been among wizards for so long, but eventually Christmas came. Harry had never celebrated it - sometimes he even forgot that it _existed_, but there it was, in the beautified trees and floating decorations, fake snow and ghosts singing Christmas carols in the castle's corridors. It was almost as if stepping into another world.

Thankfully, Hermione and Cedric both headed home for Christmas and left him alone. Since their constant presence had been starting to rub him the wrong way, he certainly appreciated that. Still, they both remembered him with Christmas presents - Cedric sent him a book about decisively non-lethal battle magic whilst Hermione sent him a box of bloodpops - so Harry knew that he wouldn't get rid of them after the holidays were over.

Dumbledore surprised Harry by giving him an Invisibility Cloak. Given, it had belonged to Harry's father before, but it was still a _Invisibility Cloak_. One Dumbledore could've just as easily kept to himself. And since Harry was no where near learning any sort of vampiric invisibility, he could think of a few ways of using it.

He also got few cards and box of cauldron cakes from a very kind Hannah Abbott, but he didn't have much use for those.

Eventually, Harry appreciated the present the twins gave him the most. There was really something to be said about pair of people who decided to give a vampire a proper Christmas feast. Of course, Harry had to pay for it as was their deal, but he certainly didn't mind that. After tasting it for the first time, Harry had grown a liking to wizard blood.

All in all, it wasn't a bad Christmas. He got presents and a feast and in the end of the day he roamed the castle under shroud of invisibility, even heading outside to watch the snow fall. If it hadn't been so silly considering it was actually the first Christmas he ever actually experienced, Harry would've said it was the best one he had.

40. Look

"I was wondering when you'd find this old thing," Dumbledore spoke from behind him as Harry stared into the mirror with look of wondering. "Hundreds of wizards and witches have discovered it before you, it and it's many delights. Have you yet figured out what it does, my boy?"

"Shows what you can't see?" Harry asked a bit confusedly. "My Master," he added just out of annoyance.

Dumbledore lifted a single white eyebrow at him and walked forwards. "What do you see, Harry?" he asked. "Yourself?"

"Myself," Harry nodded, turning to the mirror and running his hand through his hair. He hadn't realised it looked like that. Why hadn't anyone told him that his hair was just a breath's way from being matted? He would've brushed it every now and then if someone had said something about it. "Just me. I thought it's a mirror which can show even stuff most mirrors don't show. Like vampires."

"No. The mirror of Erised only shows your heart's true desire," the old man answered, now looking at Harry strangely. "I wonder… does this mean you want to be seen, my boy? Or that you want to become human once more?"

"It shows me what I desire?" Harry asked, looking into the mirror and making a sound of realisation. "Oh, then the background isn't just some odd illusion, huh? I thought that was just some weird… image." It might explain the state of his reflection-self too.

"What background?"

Harry looked pass his reflection to the burning Hogwarts, to the dead bodies and then to the blood running down his reflection's chin and smiled sweetly. "It's nothing."

41. Curious

"I've been thinking about this," Hermione whispered to Cedric over Harry's book while the vampire tried to concentrate to his reading. "It's simple really. They've closed off the third corridor for some reason - and there is a great three headed dog there. It must be guarding something. Now, then there is Snape and he's been stalking around a lot, hadn't he? Some even say that he's been injured at some point and that he's been bothering Quirrell about something…"

Harry rolled his eyes and turned the page.

"You think that he's trying to get whatever's hidden in the corridor?" Cedric asked curiously.

"Well, what else could it be? I think we should research it a little. It has to be something important since they're going through all the trouble of concealing it, and if Snape wants it, then…"

"Then nothing," Harry said calmly. "You don't even know what they're protecting there or if they're protecting anything. It could be an old sock or a monster they're trying to keep from getting to the school. The dog could be protecting us for all we know. What does it even matter?"

"Aren't you a least bit curious?" Hermione asked disappointedly.

"No, not in the least."

"But since they've closed the corridor and set up a watch dog _and_ Snape wants it, it has to be something important. It could be a treasure or something," Cedric said thoughtfully and Harry sighed.

42. Beautiful

There was a thing to be said about fire. Harry had always had a certain affection for it. Possibly because in the streets fire was the nice thing that kept you warm - though of course, Harry never felt warm or cold, but it had kept his kids content so he had supplied it to them as much as possible. He could, however, enjoy the aesthetical beauty of fire, the ever flickering shapes, the rise and descend, the brightness of newly lit fire and the hot glow of embers that were left behind…

Harry didn't know how the gamekeepers hut had caught fire, nor did he cared. It burned beautifully in the late evening and before the teachers rushed forward to douse the flames, he enjoyed the sight in quiet.

43. A walk

Harry left the castle as often as he could. He couldn't go far without Dumbledore's express permission, but he could walk around the grounds and in the woods easily enough - though to his pain, Hogsmeade and it's people were all off limits for him. Still, the forest was his sanctuary in the bothersome life of wizarding world, place to go to when he wanted peace and quiet.

Though, having peace of quiet in a place mostly inhabited by monsters was quite difficult often times. Harry had long since learned to avoid certain places with the bleeding spiders in them and he had found a few nests of snakes so big that he opted it best to avoid those as well. Common courtesy - and the fact that most centaurs used arrows with silver heads - made him avoid the places where the herds usually remained as well and usually he steered away from the unicorns too - they had habit of charging at him with horns at front when ever they saw him. He got the feeling they didn't care for vampires.

Still, he and the forest had gotten adjusted to each other. The spiders and the snakes didn't care for him as he was dead and probably tasted bad, as long as he avoided the centaurs they did the same and so on. Eventually he found places where he could stay without being bothered and routes he could take that wouldn't cross over the territories of the others inhabiting the forest.

It was that way that he found the trail of silver. From a short thought sadly non-lethal battle with the beasts few months back - blessed items were useless against light creatures, they healed the wounds they made in them - Harry knew it to belong to an unicorn.

It was just his luck that the centaurs found him soon after. "Was it you that did this?", they asked whilst aiming their silver head arrows at him. "Nothing else in this forest is fast enough to harm an unicorn."

"Why would I want to? Unicorn blood is poisonous to vampires," he answered in annoyance, though the idea that he alone was faster than unicorns in the Forbidden Forest was rather flattering. "And the only weapon I have heals the damn things."

"The vampire is telling the truth. He has been avoiding the unicorn territories so far," another centaur said. "And the shadow we have seen in the forest is bigger than he is."

"Then, naturally, he should be one to banish the shadow from these lands!" one of the centaurs said angrily. "He must be fast enough to catch it!"

"And why on Earth would I do that?" Harry asked. "I wouldn't care if all the unicorns in the world dropped dead right this minute."

By the looks of it, several of the centaurs wanted to shoot him for the comment, but none of them did. Harry smiled lazily. It seemed his compulsion even reached half-human creatures. Fascinating.

"And if the shadow comes after you?" one of the centaurs asked, raising his eyebrows. "Do you know what unicorn blood is used for? Do you know what they are hiding in the castle?"

"Do I care?" Harry asked in return, but he knew. With unicorns trying to kill him, of course he had researched them a little and between Hermione's and Cedric's little quest and Dumbledore's poor attempts of secrecy, he knew what was going on in the castle. The fact that Fred and George had worked it out months ago, helped a little. "If he comes after me, or if my Master orders it, I will kill him."

The centaurs pondered that for a moment before nodding in satisfaction. "You will leave your knife here," the leading centaur said. "We will use it to heal the unicorn unless it has already died."

"Like hell I will," Harry answered pleasantly, and ran away before they could try and figure out why they couldn't shoot him.

44. View

It put things into odd perspective that whilst there was not-quite-so-dead Dark Lord looming about trying to get a stone which granted immortality, the students in Hogwarts were working on their exams. Of course the whole concept of having a stone which granted immortality hidden in school full of children was a bit wonky on it's own, right, but anyway. Even Harry, a servant monster of Dumbledore's kept around for the sole purpose of… he actually didn't know why, but in any case, even he had to pass his bleeding exams. Like actual student, like a human!

Of course, in the end the exams proved to be easy. He had a vampire's memory after all - he never quite forgot the things he saw or heard - so writing down some things wasn't hard at all. The practical exams went a bit worse, mostly because he had been concentrating on blowing up as many potions as possible at Snape's class, but he passed even those easily enough without having to apply too much concentration on the task.

He celebrated by casting a successful banishing charm to the stair just underneath Malfoy's foot. The spectacle of Draco Malfoy tumbling down the stairs was no less amusing that it had been the first time. "Physical harm via spells affecting the area around a person is strictly forbidden," was added to his seals not much after, but it was worth it.

45. Work

"I have been summoned by the Wizengamot on supposedly urgent business," Dumbledore said whilst adjusting his collar in front of a mirror. "I want you to go down from the third corridor and protect the Stone."

"The what now?" Harry asked with innocent look and grinned at the flat stare his Master gave him. "You just want me to stand in guard then?"

"Yes, I believe this is a plot to get me from the stone, but I cannot risk missing a meeting if it truly is important. Either case, I don't want to leave the stone unguarded," the man said, straightening his labels before turning to Harry with cold look about his eyes. "If anyone comes to the chamber where the stone is held, do not hesitate. Kill them."

Harry grinned widely and bowed his head low as he felt the pendant reacting to the command. "Yes, _my Master_," he whispered with eagerness bleeding through the words.

46. Story

"What is this?" Quirrell stared at Harry with undisguised shock. "Potter?"

"Hello professor," Harry asked from in front the mirror, staring into the vision of carnage of his bloodstained mirror reflection. He could stare at it all day. "I've been waiting for you. What took you so long?"

"But… I thought…" the professor stared at him for a moment before growling in annoyance. "Well, I suppose I was excepting to see you here. What with your little crew trying to figure it all out. Did you think if was Severus? He'd fit the part, wouldn't he, swooping around like overgrown bat the way he does…"

Harry grinned, turning around to face the man as Quirrell prattled on about Snape and the troll and how he had been behind everything. It seemed Quirrell was slightly nervous. Seeing Harry there, in front of the mirror, before him, it must've shaken him a bit. How delightful.

"You're too nosy to live, Potter, scurrying around the school like in Halloween and all that wandering around you do during nights. You think you're patrolling the school then? How amusing," Quirrell snarled and waved his wand. Ropes appeared to wrap around the young vampire, locking him in place. "Well, no matter. Now wait quietly while I get the Stone…"

Harry watched as the teacher moved in front the mirror. He could've snapped the ropes easily, but this was too much fun to end so quickly. "So, you're after the stone, then?" Harry asked, wiggling his shoulders a little.

"Yes, of course," the man spat. "Snape knew from beginning, he did. Tried to stop me, to threaten me… as thought he could, when I had Lord Voldemort at on my side…" it didn't take much nudging to get Quirrell spill it all, about how he had met the Dark Lord and where, how he had been young and foolish then and so on and so on. It was like something out of a story book or movie, the villain's last monologue.

Voldemort, amusingly enough, also had his story to tell after a few minutes and lot of useless wondering and questioning about the mirror. Harry listened to both of them even endured Voldemort's speech of good and evil and attempts of turning Harry to his side, before letting the ropes snap under his strength.

"Join you?" he asked while licking his fanged teeth in anticipation. "Voldemort, I'm not here because I want to stop you or because I believe in light and goodness or anything like that. They are human concepts, and mean nothing to me. You could take the stone for all I care…" He grinned at the notion that he too was now monologuing and decided to stop it before it got too far. "However… my Master gave me orders. And like a good dog, I follow them to the letter."

47. Conflict

When Cedric tumbled into the room, Quirrell and Voldemort were both dead, with Harry still leaning over their joined corpse, feasting on the remains of the man's blood. Harry woke up from his haze of bloodlust by the boy's gasp and looked up to see the elder Hufflepuff standing not far away with look of horror on his face. Licking his lips, he grinned. "Hello Cedric," he said. "Nice of you to come here."

"H-Harry?" the boy asked, taking a step back and almost falling over himself. "W-what… Quirrell?"

"Yes," the young vampire answered, standing up and stretching. "He came here not long ago so I had to kill him, as my Master commanded. And now you're here too… in this room…" he grinned wider. "Isn't it wonderful?"

"Your… your master? Don't… don't tell me that you serve _him_!" the elder Hufflepuff gasped, backing away quickly as Harry stepped forward. "But you're the Boy Who Lived!"

"Don't tell you I serve… whom? Voldemort?" Harry asked and started laughing. Him, serve the man he just _ate_? " Boy Who Lived? Hah! That's funny, Cedric, that's really funny. Anyone ever told you that you have a good sense of humour?" he started laughing again before stopping. He felt strange. Toughing his slightly bloodied chest, he frowned. Something was different. "I think I got indigestion from that man," he muttered, turning to look at the corpse. "Hard man to swallow, you are," he groaned before starting to cough, falling to his knees.

"Harry?" Cedric asked, half worried and half frightened. "What's…. what's going on…?"

Harry didn't answer, dry heaving slightly at the feel of churning inside him. It felt like something was _shifting_. "Maybe I have a food poisoning," he laughed little madly through the nausea, leaning to the floor and trying to make his insides - and all the people there - to settle down. "Was it Quirrell? No, he can't be this hard to ingest," he muttered. "Then it's the parasite lord… definitely hard man to swallow…"

Then, just as quickly as it had started, it clicked into place. Harry blinked with surprise as sudden realisation came over him and he heard it. Moaning, whimpering in the back of his mind. "Don't kill me, don't kill me, don't kill me," over and over and over again in dull, monotonous whining.

"Oh… oh my…" Harry muttered with wonder, touching forehead. There it was his compulsion. Little bit of Voldemort right inside him, whimpering endlessly like a child. For years and years it had been begging, over and over, never stopping. Expelling telepathic - or was it Legilimency - field of endless beseeching around Harry, making people show _mercy_ to him. "How long have _you_ been there?" he asked amusedly.

"H-Harry?" the question reminded him that Cedric was still there. The elder Hufflepuff was staring at him obviously thinking he had finally lost it completely.

Harry looked up, his eyes gleaming. "Oh yes. Dessert," he muttered and got up to his feet. Cedric only managed to stumble back one single step before Harry had already reached him.

"No, Harry, stop!" a more commanding voice demanded. "You may not kill him!"

Harry glanced over his shoulder and grimacing angrily towards Dumbledore whilst begrudgingly letting go of the young human. "Yes," he growled, every cell in his body screaming against it, but unable to do anything but comply. "As you wish, my Master."

48. Ability

Dumbledore hadn't missed what had happened in front of the mirror of Erised. Harry had a feeling that he had somehow recorded the meeting between Harry and Voldemort, or maybe he had been there longer, listening. However, he had discovered what Harry hadn't really been hiding, but still would've preferred to keep to himself.

"Tell me about this gift of yours," Dumbledore demanded through forced calm. "This ability to… consume people."

"It's a talent every _proper_ vampire has," Harry answered with slight, cold smile. "Those we eat stay with us."

It was hard to explain in way a human could comprehend it. It wasn't just matter of memories like Dumbledore suspected either. Blood contained more than just red and white blood cells and whatnot - for a vampire, blood was everything. Harry didn't even need to kill a person to get memories and knowledge from their blood - because of that, he knew more about Fred and George than they knew he did, though of course he'd never tell them that. And when he drained a person dry, that person stayed with him. Just like the vampire woman who had toed Harry's territory, just as few others. Just like Voldemort and Quirrell.

"So now you have… Voldemort inside you?" Dumbledore asked with a frown.

"Bits and pieces of him," Harry answered with annoyed grimace. "He's not whole."

"No… no he isn't," Dumbledore said, before leaning back and explaining everything.

49. Incessant

Cedric never would remember what had happened down in the chamber. All he would know that he had fallen unconscious after stepping inside and that was all. Dumbledore had made certain of it, much to Harry's annoyance. He would've preferred just to dispose the older student.

Hermione asked a few questions afterwards, but Cedric had no answers to give and Harry wouldn't give any answers. And when Hermione asked him why he was sick, all Harry would say was "I ate something that didn't agree with me," and laughed.

In the end they fell to their former slots. Hermione and Cedric, not knowing anything of his true nature, stood at his sides, still trying to "make him sane" whilst Harry laughed himself half to death behind their backs. Fred and George seemed to know something had happened, as they were now giving thoughtful looks at Harry and somewhat pitying looks at Cedric, but they never said anything. And they even still offered their blood to him, despite everything.

Humans were so much fun at times. No matter what happened, they just kept coming back for more.

50. Hope

Dumbledore made Harry take the train on the final day, so that his "cover" would be maintained. Harry endured it, sitting with Cedric and Hermione, tempting Ron Weasley to punch Draco Malfoy to the face and having a brief and sweet farewell feast of Fred and George Weasley. If no one else, he was going to miss the pair of them during the summer. In all of Hogwarts, the twins had been the most pleasant company.

Eventually the train pulled to the King's Cross station where Harry stood for a while in confusion, not sure if he was supposed to wait for his Master or what he was going to do. He watched how the others left and waited, until Fawkes appeared out of nowhere, bearing a letter.

"Have a pleasant summer. I'll expect to see you at Hogwarts on September the first, unless I call for you earlier than that. Sincerely, your Master," was all the letter said.

Harry grinned at the feeling how finally, after ten months, the illusions around him faded away. Appearing five year old once more, he crushed the letter in his fingers. Maybe there was hope for his Master yet.

x

And here's a bit more, that should answer some questions. This was fun to write, but the next one is stuck so I might not post more in a while, but hey, at least I finished one full book. Why Hufflepuff and not Gryffindor/Slytherin/Ravenclaw, why Cedric and not Ron, why _Master_mind Dumbledore, why weird-Weasley-twins, why bloodpops? Because.

My apologies for possible grammar errors and such.


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